While the San Francisco 49ers keep winning with quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo and end the 2017 season as one of the hotter NFL teams, their draft status continues to drop. Following this past Sunday's 44-33 victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars, the 49ers' draft status suffered its most significant plummet of the season falling from fourth overall to eighth. That is a considerable drop when you take into account that San Francisco has been as high as second within the projected draft order.
Another win could drop the 49ers even further down the draft order. Of course, none of that matters to the players, who are working to end the season strong. It also doesn't matter to head coach Kyle Shanahan, as he explained during a Friday morning interview on KNBR.
"My goal is to see how bad of a draft pick we can get," Shanahan said on the "Murph & Mac" show. "I know not everybody wants to hear that, but I definitely don't sit here and just look at the draft order because you're right, that isn't fun to look at. I'm worried about right now.
"I do think it's a lot more important than people realize. It is tough to get your team to learn how to win, and learn how to compete, and just to believe and have that confidence that separates you from some of the other teams in this league. I feel we're doing that right now and I do believe that's a lot more important than whether your draft pick is seven or eight or whatever.
"You deal with now, and you take the best player to add to our group when we get to the draft. You're not thinking that your whole team is riding on that second pick or that fifth pick. Your team is your team. We're just hoping to add some people to it when we get to this offseason."
If the 49ers win their season finale against the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday, they will finish with a 6-10 record. Another team that went 6-10 was the 1980 49ers under second-year head coach Bill Walsh. Of course, that team went on to win the Super Bowl next season. Those earlier 49ers teams have crossed Shanahan's mind.
"I thought of it at first because didn't they go 2-14 the first year, 6-10 the second?" he asked. "So, I was thinking about that 2-14 for a while to tell you the truth. I'd feel much better if we could finish 6-10 than 2-14. Neither of those are the goal. You want to do as good as you can, and you always want to have that winning record and give yourself a chance to go to the playoffs.
"But considering where we came from and where we were just a month ago, finishing with six wins, I think, would be a hell of a deal."
You can listen to the entire interview with Shanahan below.